
[From the Transactions of the American Philological Association, 1869-70.] 



MISTAKEN NOTIONS OF A LG ON KIN GRAMMAR 


ADD OS MISTRANSLATIONS OF WORDS FROM ELIOT'S BIBLE, &c. 


Ry .J. IIAMNIOND TRUMBULL. 

II 


John Eliot’s version of the Bible in the language of the 
Indians of Massachusetts has been characterized as “a rich 
mine of Indian philology,” from which “a complete grammar 
and valuable dictionary might, with labor and perseverance, 
be extracted.”* Scholars like Pickering and Gallatin have 
now and then really worked a vein or two of this mine, with 
moderate success; but for every such one there have been 
fifty who were content to glean a few surface-specimens and 
spare themselves all trouble of assay or analysis. The rich¬ 
ness of the mine considered, it is surprising that so much 
worthless ore has been brought out of it and that so much 
which was intrinsically good has been made worthless in 
the smelting process to which it was subjected to prepare it 
for filling the molds of comparative vocabularies, for bracing 
up an unsound hypothesis, or for pinning together some lin¬ 
guistic structure which was not quite strong enough to stand 
alone. If an Algonkin place name is to be mis-interpreted, 
the mis-interpretation is usually made on the supposed author¬ 
ity of Eliot. When his version is referred to for the purpose 

* Duponccau’s Notes to Eliot’s “ Indian Grammar Begun,” in Massachusetts 
Hist. Collections, 2d Ser., vol ix. p. ix. 

1 : . 









/U 







9 


J. II. Trumbull , 


of finding an Algonk* 

English text, the chr 
taken for the ro< vf/ 

There are few 
somewhere been led 
on the alleged authoi] 

Grammar of the Lenni\ 
not surprising that distinguished European philologists, who 


•i’esr ''ding to one in the 
formative is mis- 

uages who have not 
on statements made 
le or of Zeisberger’s 
aware) language. It is 


could consult these authorities only at second-hand, have 
been thus misled. They are excusable for adopting and giv¬ 
ing currency to the false notions of Indian synthesis, the 
worthless etymologies, and the mis-translations, which had 
received the endorsement of American scholars of high repute 
and passed unquestioned from this side of the Atlantic. 

1 propose in the present paper to call attention to a few of 
these errors, and to show that some of the best accredited dicta 
concerning the Algonkin languages rest on very slight foun¬ 
dations— or have no foundation whatever. They may be 
divided in two classes, — as they belong to the grammar , or 
to the vocabulary. Of the former, I mention first, — 

The alleged existence of a definite article , in certain Algon¬ 
kin languages, especially in the Massachusetts and the Leuni 
Lenape. 

Mr. Duponceau was the first to announce the discovery, 
in the Natick (Massachusetts) dialect, of u a part of speech 
which had not been noticed by grammarians in the Indian lan¬ 
guages”. In a note appended to Pickering’s edition of Eliot’s 
Indian Grammar Begun (1821), he wrote as follows: — 

“It is remarkable, that this language appears to possess a 
definite article, although no mention is made of it in this 
Grammar. This article is mo , contracted from monko , and 
properly signifies it. .... This pronoun when used as an 
article is still further contracted into m , which, when followed 
by a consonant, Eliot connects with it by the English short 
according to his method, and sometimes by short e. Thus he 
writes metah , “ the heart,” which should be pronounced m'tah. 
It is evident, that the m stands here for an article , because 
the personal affixes ‘my’, ‘thy’, ‘his’, are w, k , and w; nuttah 
or n'tah , ‘my heart’, kuttah or Wtah, ‘thy heart’, ivuttah or 
w'tah , ‘ his or her heart’. ... In the translation of the Bible, 



PM 5^ 
Xl 


On Mistaken Notions of Algonkin Grammar. 3 

this article frequently appears: Kesteah pa/ike metah “Create 
in me a clean heart”. Ps. li. 10. — Poliqui kali tannogld metah 
“A broken and contrite heart.” Ibid. 17. Several words 
are also found in his [Eliot’s] Grammar, in which this article 

is prefixed, though not noticed as sucli.This article 

exists in several of the Indian languages,” &e. (pp. xiv. xv.) 

To this note was appended the copy of a letter received 
from Mr. Hcckcwelder, assuring Mr. Duponceau that “the 
article t mp 9 for ‘a’ or ‘the’, which he had discovered in the 
language of the Naticks is the same in the language of the 
Lenape.” 

In the translation of Zcisberger’s Delaware Grammar, pub¬ 
lished in 1826, the statement that “there is an article in the 
Delaware language” is repeated; and reference is made (p. 
36,) to the translator’s discovery of this article “in the Massa¬ 
chusetts language.” 

Again, in the well known Memoire sur le Systeme Grammat¬ 
ical des Langues de quelques Nations Indiennes (Paris, 1838), 
Mr. Duponceau asserts that “les langues Algonquines out 
l’article. . . . Les grammairiens Eliot et Zeisberger ne l’ont 
pas memo apergu, c’est pourquoi ils n’en out pas parl6”; but ? 
“des Indianologues plus r^cens out enfin ddcouvert son 
existence”, etc. (p. 148). 

In Mr. Gallatin’s “ Synopsis of the Indian Tribes” (1836), 
Mr. Duponceau is credited with “ the discovery of an article 
mo; as m'hittuk ‘a tree’ or 4 the tree’,” (p. 220) and allusion 
is made (p. 163) to “the initial m often prefixed to the noun 
in the Knisteneaux and the Chippeway” languages, as “ seem¬ 
ing to corroborate the existence of a definite article mo , discov¬ 
ered by Mr. Duponceau in Eliot’s translation of the Bible.” 

And so the definite article, — unknown to Eliot and Zeis¬ 
berger, disbelieved in by “ M. Hcckewelder lui-m^me .... 
jusqu’a ce qu’il fut convaincu du contraire par les recherches 
des philologues”, — took its established place among the parts 
of Algonkin speech. 

Yet it may easily be shown that the m’ prefixed to certain 
classes of Algonkin nouns is not a definite article, — that it does 
not stand for mo, — that mo is not a contraction of monlco, — and 
that monko does not signify ‘it’, in Eliot’s Bible or elsewhere. 



4 


J. H. Trumbull, 


Mo or mo is put by Eliot (Ind. Grammar, 21) among “ ad¬ 
verbs of denying”, “sometimes signifying not”. Thus lie 
writes mo teag and mo n teag ‘ nothing’ (Isaiah xl. IT; xli. 17) : 
mo teag ohtdou ‘ he hath nothing’ (Prov. xiii. 4), and mo tea- 
guas ohtdou (Prov. xx. 4). But he more frequently uses this 
particle as the sign of the preterit , to denote completed and 
terminated action or being, — that which was and is not , — or 
as a substitute for the past tense of the substantive verb. It 
has this meaning in the verses cited from Eliot’s version by 
Mr. Duponceau, and in many others. ’ Nnih or unnih means 
‘it is so’, and mo nnih (Genesis i. 15) ‘it was so’; wunnegen 
‘it is good’ (Ps. lii. 9), and mo ahehe wunnegen ‘it was very 
good’ (Gen. i. 31) ; na moo pharisae wosketomp ‘ there was a 
Pharisee man’ (John iii. 1), and matta mo wosketomp ‘ there 
was not a man’, literally, ‘ not was man’ (Gen. ii. 5) ; wequai 
[thereis] ‘light’, and mo loequai ‘ there was light’ (Gen. i. 3), 
ne mo wequai ‘ that was [the] light’ (John i. 9); ken mo wut 
tinneumin ‘tliou wast a servant’ (Deut. v. 17); na mo Icesukod 
‘ there was a day’ (Matt. viii. 26). In a very few instances — 
nearly all of which occur in the first chapter of Genesis, at the 
beginning of Eliot’s work of translation — he employed the 
questionable synthesis mdnko nnih for ‘it was so’ (vv. 7, 9, 
11, 24, 30) : mdnko having been formed, apparently, from 
md and ko , to signify ‘ was and continues to be’.* 

Mr. Duponceau having mistaken the sign of the past tense 
for a pronoun transformed the supposed pronoun into a definite 
article. But the office of the prefixed m > (as in Mass, m’tah 
‘ heart’) was just the reverse of that of a definite article. 
Primarily a negative ora privative — always undefinitive — 
it was used not with all nouns but with a few only,— witli the 
names of the body and its members, of articles belonging to or 
generally associated with the person, of terms expressing rela- 

* The particle ko or koh denotes continuance or progression. As an auxiliary, 
it refers to a past time action or being not yet completed or terminated, — when 
what now is ‘ began to be’ or ‘once was’ — or affirms present as related to prior ac¬ 
tion or being. Eliot occasionally employs it for the verb substantive, as in Job 
xiv. 10, kah uttoh ko wutapin? ‘and where is he’; noh koh mo, noh koh, kah noh paont 
‘ who was, and is, and is to come’ (Rev. iv. 8); and ken nukoh [ = noh koh], kah ken 
nukoh mo, kah kenpaoan, ‘thou who wast, and art, and art to come’ (Rev. xi. 17). 





On Mistaken Notions of Algonkin Grammar. 


5 


tionship, and some others: and it served to divest these of all 
personal and individual relation or appropriation. For exam¬ 
ple, when an Indian spoke of ‘body’ or ‘person’ he usually 
employed a possessive pronominal prefix, — ‘ my body’, ‘ thy 
body’, ‘ his body’ (Mass. rChog , k'hog, ir’hog') : but if he found 
it necessary to speak of ‘ body’ or ‘ heart’ in the abstract, or 
divested of its natural associations, lie substituted for the pos¬ 
sessive and personal the negative and impersonal prefix, m\ 
M'hog ( miihhog , Eliot,) denotes ‘ body not mine, yours or his’ 
— some body, regarded as without appropriation or personal 
relation: ni’tag ( metah , El., mtee, Zeisberger,) ‘heart’, not 
my heart ( n'tay ), nor yours (k'tay), &c* 

Another modern discovery in Algonkin grammar was that 
of a vocative case of nouns. Eliot had stated (in his Indian 
Grammar Begun, p. 8) that nouns in the Massachusetts lan¬ 
guage are “not varied by cases, cadencies and endings,” — 
except that “there scemeth to be one cadency or case” of 
animate nouns, corresponding to the Latin accusative. But 
Zeisberger found terminations in the Delaware which “ex¬ 
press the vocative”. He gave several examples of these in his 
Grammar of that language (p. 37), and Mr. Duponceau, in his 
Notes to Eliot’s Grammar (p. xiv), pointed out “different 
terminations of the same word, in various parts of Eliot’s 
translation of the Bible”, — of which “the termination in in 
the vocative singular and unk in the vocative plural” could 
not, he thought, be accounted for consistently with Eliot’s 
“positive statement that substantives arc not distinguished by 
cases.” He cited Zeisberger’s authority for the fact that “ the 
Delaware has a vocative case, which generally ends in an.” 
Mr. Gallatin (Synopsis, p. 173) repeats: “There is a vocative 
case in some at least of the Algonkin-Lenape languages, ter¬ 
minating, in the singular of the Delaware, in an , and of the 

* Howse (Cree Grammar, p. 245) has pointed out the mistake of “some writers 
who have considered the element of me - (and w- or w?-) prefixed to cer ain nouns, 
as equivalent to the European Article.” This element, he says, is found in the 
Cree “only in the names of the body and its parts, ... in those expressing rela¬ 
tionship, as ne-gduwfe ‘my mother’, me-gduivee ‘a mother’ &c., — with a very few 
others.” 



6 


J. II Trumbull. 


Massachusetts in in; in the plural Delaware, in enk, “when 
coupled with the pronoun our” (Zeisberger,p. 99.) The same 
termination eunk is used generally for the second person plu¬ 
ral in the Massachusetts.” Dr. Pickering in his paper on 
“ Indian Languages,” in the Encyclopaedia Americana, adopted 
Zeisberger’s statement that “ in the Delaware, in two cases, 
the vocative and ablative, there is an inflection,” — the former 
being “ expressed by the termination an”,<k c. On so excel¬ 
lent authority the Delaware vocative in an and the Massa¬ 
chusetts vocative in in and eunk have been received, without 
question, into the Algonkin grammatical system. 

Without affirming or denying the existence of a vocative 
form in some Algonkin languages, but considering only the 
evidence on which it has been engrafted on the dialects of 
Massachusetts and Delaware, — 1 assert that Eliot’s Bible will 
be searched in vain for a vocative singular in in or for a “ ter¬ 
mination eunk used generally for the second plural plural”, 
and that among the examples given by Zeisberger there is not 
one of a noun in the vocative case ending in an or <?n/c, but 
that all these examples are verbs or participles of the suffix- 
animate form or, as Heckewelder (in his Correspondence with 
Duponceau, p. 41G) termed it, the “participial-pronominal- 
vocative form.” The supposed Delaware vocative in an is a 
verb in the conditional (subjunctive) mood, 2d pers. singular 
of the subject with 1st pers. singular of the object, and the 
form is nearly the same in the Massachusetts language as in 
the Delaware. Zeisberger’s “ Nihillalian , 0 thou my Lord!” 
is, literally translated, ‘Thou who ownest (or, art master of) 
me’, i. e. 4 Thou as owning me’; “ Pemauchsohalian, 0 my 
Saviour!” is ‘Thou as giving life to me’, <fcc.* Eliot has 
nrnvaan ‘thou that sayest’ (thou as saying ), and mdskowaan 
‘thou that makest thy boast of’, Rom. ii. 23; ken ivadohkean 
‘thou that dwellest’, Ps. lxxx. 1, &c. The supposed vocative 
in - enk , in the Delaware, is the 2d person singular of the sub¬ 
ject with the 1st person plural of the object; “ Ni/iillaliyenk, 0 
thou our Lord!” (Zeisb. Gram. 116) is ‘ Thou who ownest 


*Ho\vse, Crec Grammar, pp. 310, 311, has shown that Zeisberger’s vocatives 
“have verbal endings” and are all “in the Subjunctive or Subordinate mood.” 






On Mistaken Notions of Algonkin Grammar. 7 

(or, as owning') us.’* When the subject is plural, and the ob¬ 
ject in the 3d person or the verb intransitive, Eliot uses a 
participle or verbal formed from the second person plural of 
the subjunctive by adding -ish: e. g. kenaau wonkandgish 
ahtomp ‘ye that bend the bow’, Jerem. 1. 29 ; kenaau quoshd- 
gis/i ‘ye that fear’, Ps. cxv. 11; kenaau kdkobsodgish ‘ye deaf’ 
(i. e. ye as not-hearing), kenaaupogkeuumdgish k yc blind’, Is. 
xlii. 18. But this form is not distinctively vocative, for it is 
found with the pronoun of the first person, as in I. Tbess. iv. 
15, 17, nenawun pamontamdgisn kali ajiedgisn 4 we which are 
alive and remain’, and Hcbr. iv. 3, nenawun wanamptamagisn 
4 we who believe.’ 

In bis search for vocatives in the Massachusetts language, 
Mr. Duponccau was “surprised to find different terminations 
of the same word, in various parts of Eliot’s translation of the 
Bible”, some of which he was at a loss how to explain, “other¬ 
wise than by the conjecture that our author might have had 
recourse to different Indian dialects in translating.” (Notes 
on Eliot’s Grammar, xiv.) He gave the following examples:— 

Wuttaunim Zion, ‘Daughter of Zion’. Lament, ii. 8. Woi 
Jerusalemme wuttaunm, 4 0 daughter of Jerusalem’, v. 13. 

Woi kenaau Jerusalemme wuttaun eunk, 4 0 ye daughters of 
Jerusalem’, Solom. Song, ii. 7. 

Kah ompetak wuttdneu , ‘And she bare a daughter’, — as 
Mr. Duponccau translated it, but which in the verse cited 
(Gen. xxx. 21) stands for the words “and afterwards she 
bare a daughter”. He mistook the adverb ompetak 4 after¬ 
wards’ for a verb meaning 4 to bear’, and ivuttoneu (mis¬ 
printed, wuttaneu) — a verb in the 3d pers. sing, indicative 
present (aorist), meaning ‘she bare a daughter’, for a noun ; 
remarking that the termination “ eu in the accusative governed 

* When Duponceau wrote his Memoire sur le Systeme Grammatical &c., pub¬ 
lished in 1838, he had learned that the terminations which Zeisberger regarded as 
belonging to the vocative were verbal forms; but he was still persuaded that the 
words receiving these forms were nouns not verbs. “ Au lieu du vocatif” — he says 
[Memoire, p. 159)—on emploie unc forme verbale qu'on applique au nom substantif ; 
elle varie selon les nombres. Ces formes, qu’il est inutile de preciser davantage, 
tiennent la place du verbe etre: ainsi, lorsqu’on dit: 0 mon dicu! e’est comme si 
on disait: O toi qui es mon dieu \” &c. 





8 


J. H. Trumbull. 


by an active verb” “ cannot be accounted for”, — which is 
quite true. 

Of the three forms Wuttaunoh, Wuttaunin, and Wuttaun¬ 
eunk , he remarked that “the first is correct.” So it is,—but 
not for the reason be assigns, that “it is a proper nominative 
of this word.” If it were a nominative, it would stand in 
apposition with Zion , and the translation must be ‘his (or 
her) daughter Zion.’ But the termination -oh, with the pro¬ 
nominal prefix wu\ marks the governing noun (as in the 
Hebrew construct form), — ‘the daughter of.’ 

Wuttaun-in is a proper nominative, its termination marking 
it as a noun-animate indefinite, ‘ a daughter’ or 4 any daughter.’ 
That this termination -in is not “ in the vocative singular” 
may be shown by reference to other verses in which the same 
form of the word occurs,— as a nominative, in Micah vii. 6, 
wuttaunin ayeuhkonittue ohkasoh ‘the daughter, against her 
mother’, and in Numbers, xxxvi. 8, nishnoh wuttaunin noli 
ahtunk ohtoonk ‘every daughter that possesseth an inherit¬ 
ance’,— and after a governing preposition, Levit. xii. 0, 
wutch wunnaumondin asuh wuttaunin ‘ for a son or a daughter.’ 

The termination of Wuttauneunk ,— U unk in the vocative 
plural”, as Mr. Duponceau regarded it,—is that of a collective 
noun , without reference to case or person. Wuttaun eiink, in 
the verse cited, means ‘the daughters’ collectively, the daugh- 
terhood; so, in Judges xxi. 21, we find Shiloe wuttauneunk 
‘ the daughters of Shiloh’, the Shiloh daughterhood. Nouns 
of this form are of frequent occurrence in Eliot’s version. 
Thus we have wdmonwk wweemattinneunk ‘love ye the brother¬ 
hood’, I. Peter, ii. 17; wutcoshinneunk ‘the fathers’ or the 
fatherhood, Numb. xxxi. 26; I. John, ii. 13; wunnaumonain- 
neunk ‘the children’ collectively, Luke, xvi. 8.* 

We are now in a position to sum up the evidence on which 

* Molina (History of Chili, American translation, vol. ii. p. 303) mentions sim¬ 
ilar nouns collective in the Araucanian language, and classes them.with abstract 
terms formed by adding gen (representing the verb ‘to be’) to adjectives or verbs. 
Thus, “instead of saying pu Huinra ‘the Spaniards’, they commonly say, Buin- 
cagen ‘the Spaniolity’, — tamen cuicigen ‘your trio’, that is, you other three,” &e. 
See Pickering’s notes on Edwards’s Observations &c., in Mass. Hist. Coll., 2d 
S., x. 120. 







On Mistaken Notions of Algonkin Grammar. 


9 


philologists have agreed to recognize a vocative case-ending 
of nouns in the Massachusetts language. We have only Mr. 
Duponceau’s misinterpretation of two words employed by 
Eliot. He mistook the termination of a noun indefinite for 
that of the vocative singular, and made a vocative plural out 
of a noun collective. 

The fact that no Algonkin language has an independent 
verb-substantive—a fact denied by Cass and Schoolcraft, and 
which has been questioned by many writers on American lan¬ 
guages,— may now be regarded as established. Much of 
the discussion on this subject has turned on the precise mean¬ 
ing of the phrase by which Eliot translated 44 I am that I am”, 
in Exodus, iii. 14, — Nen nuttinniin nen nuttinniin. 

Heckew'elder, in reply to a question from Duponceau, could 
only say that this “could never be a literal translation of the 
text,” and that 44 if it means anything, it must be either “I am 
a man, I am a man,” or “I do so, 1 do so.” Duponceau, 
44 after much consideration and study of the subject, inclined 
to the opinion that Mr. Heckewelder is right in his last con¬ 
jecture” (Notes on Eliot’s Grammar, xlii.); and in his M6- 
moire (p. 195) he unhesitatingly accepts this translation, as 
deciding the question of the existence of the verb 4 to be’ in 
Algonkin languages. “On atrouve”— he writes,—“lemoyen 
de la decider d’une maniere qui ne laisse plus de doute. On 
a chcrchl dans la Bible indienne d’Eliot, la traduction du 
cel&bre passage: ego sum qui sum (Exod. iii. 14), et on a 
trouvd nen nuttinniin nen nuttinniin ; on a cherclid aussi dans 
le memo livre, la traduction du passage ego [sum] sicut vos, 
dans l’< 3 pitre de saint Paul aux Galates, ch. iv., v. 12, et on a 
trouvd nen neyane kenaau; on a envoys ces deux passages 
ainsi traduits aux missionnaires les plus instruits dans les 
langues Algonquines, et ils out trouv6 que le premier signifiat: 
jefais,jefais; et le second: nous nous ressemblons ou je vous 
ressemble .” 

Duponceau’s dictum — founded, as we have seen, on a guess 
of Heckewelder’s — was authoritative. Since the publication 
of the Memoire , 44 1 do, I do,” has been the accepted transla¬ 
tion of Eliot’s nen nuttinniin nen nuttinniin ,—and has been 



2 





10 


J. H. Trumbull , 


pointed to as a proof of the poverty of American languages.* 
No one apparently has taken the trouble to re-examine the 
text or to analyze the synthesis Eliot employed, — though 
this might easily have been done without other help than his 
version of the Bible itself affords. 

To supply the want of a verb-substantive every Algonkin 
dialect has several verbs to express the where and the how of 
being,— modal and conditioned existence. Those which 
most frequently occur in Eliot’s version are,— 

1. Ohteau ‘it has itself’, the intransitive form of ohtau , 
‘he lias’, ‘owns’, ‘possesses’. Used only when the subject is 
inanimate: e. g., ayeuonk ohteau ‘the place is’, Judg. xviii. 
12; pish ohteau ‘it will be’, Gen. xvii. 13; suppositive or con¬ 
junctive, ohtag , ‘ if (or, when) it is’, Matt. v. 14. Chippeway, 
“ ate , there is of it; it is” (Baraga) ; “ atta , to be” (School¬ 
craft). 

2. Appu (Chip, abi , Baraga; Cree, apH, abti , Howse;) ‘ he 
sits’, ‘ is at rest’, — hence ‘ he remains’, ‘ abides’; and so, ‘he 
is’ or ‘ continues to be’ — in a state of rest or inactivity is im¬ 
plied. With an adverb of place, wutappin ; as na wutappin 
‘ he sat down there’, Ruth, iv. 1, ‘ he was there’, John, v. 5; 
yeu ivutappin ‘he is here’, John, vi. 9 ; toh kutappin? ‘ where 
art thou ?’ Gen. iii. 9. 

3. Ayeu (Chip, ahyah , Jones; iau ‘ he is’, Schoolcraft —who 
lias given a paradigm of it, as the Chip, verb ‘ to be’,) ‘ he is 
in someplace ’ designated; ‘lie is there\ John, xi. 30; hence, 

‘ he dwells’ or ‘ inhabits’. Noh ayeu kah appu ‘ lie dwells and 
abides’, Job, xxxix. 28: imperfect, nut-di-up ‘ I was there’, 
Acts, xi. 5: conjunctive, dyit. aiyit (Chip, ahyod , Jones), 
noh dyit machemotagit ‘ he that inhabiteth (i. e. as inhabiting') 
eternity’, Is. lvii. 15. The 2d person conjunctive ( dyean , 
Eliot,) of this verb is found in various Algonkin versions of 
the Lord’s prayer; “ who art in Heaven”, Moheg. ne spurn - 
muck oieon (Edwards) ; Old Abnaki, spemkik aiian; Old Pas- 
samaquoddy, spemkik ehine (Vetromile, from Rasies?), Ma- 

*Mr. Farrar introduces it (Chapters on Language, p. 54), to illustrate of the 
“primordial and unbroken barbarism of the North American Indians”, etc., — and 
again, in his Lectures on Families of Speech, p. 183, to show the “almost imbecile 
deficiency of abstraction,” which characterizes American languages. 



On Mistaken Notions of Algonkin Grammar. 11 

reschit,— eyane (lb.) ; Chip, ishpimingk eaiun (Testament), 
<fcc. Eliot’s version omits the verb ; “ Our Father in Heaven.” 

4. ’ Nnih , Unnih^ it is so’ or (aorist) ‘it was so’, Gen. i. 7, 
9, 15. Eliot uses this word for the phrase ‘ it came to pass’ 
or ‘comes to pass’. Imperat. 3d pers. sing., ne naj , ne natch , 
‘ be it so.’ 

5. Neane , Neyane , ‘ it is like’ or ‘ the same as’; as in the 
passage cited by Mr. Duponceau, Galatians, iv. 12, nen neyane 
kenaau ‘I [am] as ye [arc]’. The imperative 2d pers. plural 
(with 1st person sing, object) and the adverbial form are 
found in the same verse: unniyegk neyanie ‘be ye as I [am]’. 
The conjunctive participle nedunak (or -nag') used as a noun, 
‘that which is like’ or ‘being like’, stands for ‘likeness’, ‘ap¬ 
pearance’, ‘ color’, ‘ fashion’ of, <fcc.: nedunag yen muttaok ‘ the 
fashion of this world’, I. Cor. vii. 31. 

6. Wuttinniin ‘lie is of the kind of ’ or ‘is such as\ This 
verb cannot be exactly translated in English. 'It expresses 
the relation of an individual to a species or a class, the appro¬ 
priation of its subject to an object expressed or understood, a 
belonging-to , — not merely external likeness or relation. It is 
conjugated in the present indicative as follows: 

nuttinniin , I am of the kind of, I am such as, 

kuttinniin , Thou art of the kind of, — such as, 

wuttinniin , He is of the kind of, — such as. 

It occurs not unfrequently in Eliot’s version; e. g., Prov. 
xxiii. 7, nedne unnantog ut wuttahhut , ne wuttiniin ‘as he 
thinketh in his-heart so is lie’, i. e., of that kind is he; I. Sam. 
xxvii. 11, ne pish wuttinniin ‘ so will be his manner’, i. e., that 
will he-be-of*the-kind-of; and Is. xxiv. 2, neaniit wuttinneumin, 
ne wuttinniin wussontimomun ‘ as with the servant, so [of that 
kind is] his master.’ In Exodus, iii. 14, nen nuttiniin nen 
nuttinniin means, literally, ‘ I myself am of the kind of I my¬ 
self am of the kind of’ or ‘ I am such as I am such as "—Ego 
sum talis qualis ego sum , for the “ Ego qui sum” of the Vulgate 
and the “I am that I am” of the English text. Marked em¬ 
phasis is given to the pronoun of the first person by using both 
its forms (independent and prefixed) with each verb,— nen 
n ‘ego ipse’. 


12 


J. H. Trumbull 


In the first edition of Eliot’s Bible (1663), ne ‘that’ stands 
in the place of the second nen. This was corrected on revis¬ 
ion, because ne, the inanimate demonstrative, cannot properly 
be employed to denote the subject or object of a verb animate. 

The very general use of transitional forms of conjugation, 
in which the pronoun of the object as well as of the subject is 
combined with the verb, has led some distinguished writers 
on American languages to infer that the Indian verb cannot 
be divested of its pronominal suffix. Edwards (Observations 
on the Muhhekaneew Language, p. 13) states, that the Mohe- 
gans “never use a verb transitive without expressing both the 
agent and the object, correspondent to the nominative and 
accusative cases in Latin. Thus they cannot say, ‘I love’, 
‘thou givest’, Ac. But they can say, ‘I love thee’, ‘thou 
givest him’, Ac. viz. Nduhwhunuw ‘I love him or her’; 
nduhwhuntamin ‘ I love it,’ Ac. Mr. Cass, in an article on the 
Indian Languages, in the North American Review (for Jan¬ 
uary, 1826; vol. xxii. p. 80) made a similar statement; 
“The pronouns, actor and subject, are associated with the 
verb. One is prefixed, and the other is suffixed; and the 
latter is generally inseparable in its form. The active verbs 
cannot be used without this personal association. An Indian 
cannot say I love, I hate, I fear, abstracted from the operation 
of the verb upon the object.” Mr. Bancroft repeats this, sub¬ 
stantially, in his observations on the synthetic character of 
the American languages (Hist, of the U. States, vol. iii., 12th 
ed., p. 261): “An Algonkin cannot say I love, I hate; he 
must also, and simultaneously, express the object of the love or 
hatred. . . . Each active verb includes in one and the same 
word one pronoun representing its subject, and another repre¬ 
senting its object also.” 

Dr. Edwards was wrong—as the very examples he used for 
illustration show: but his error is less apparent because it is 
restricted to a denial of the use, by the Stockbridge Mohegans, 
of transitive verbs without a pronoun-objective. Mr. Cass’s 
denial extends to all active verbs and to all Algonkin lan¬ 
guages. Nothing can be farther from the fact. There is no 
Algonkin dialect in which an Indian may not say ‘ I love’ or 


On Mistaken Notions of Algonkin Grammar. 13 

‘ I hate’, without denoting by a pronominal suffix the object 
loved or hated. He has for this the choice of three or four 
verbs; (1) strictly intransitive, affirming the existence of 
affection, ‘I am in love’ or ‘I feel lovingly’; (2) animate- 
active intransitive (the adjective-verb form, as some gramma¬ 
rians term it)—affirming the exercise of affection,—‘I am 
loving’ or ‘I am a lover’; (3) active-transitive absolute,— 
the forms of which vary (but not by a pronominal suffix') as the 
implied object of affection belongs to one or the other of the 
two great classes of Indian nouns, animate and inanimate, the 
former class including not only all living beings but many in¬ 
animate objects held in special regard by the Indians. These 
forms serve, respectively, for the affirmations ‘ I love some 
person, animal or object of the class animate’ (a bow, a kettle, 
or tobacco, it may be,) or ‘I love something’ not of that class. 
Either may receive in addition to the formative proper a pro¬ 
nominal suffix,—but each is complete without it. 

It is true that a savage’s conception of Hove’, subjective or 
objective, differs from that of a Christian, and missionaries by 
whom the Algonkin languages have one after another been 
reduced to writing have not all agreed in the selection of the 
word which comes nearest to the meaning of the English verb 
to love or the French aimer. Eliot in Massachusetts and 
Roger Williams in Narragansett employed a verb the precise 
meaning of whose root (worn, waum) is not ascertained. The 
Roman Catholic missionaries have generally adopted another, 
more common among the northern and western Algonkins, 
from the root sdg , saug , ‘ to cling’ or ‘hold fast’. With this 
explanation, the following examples are enough to show how 
4 1 love’ may be expressed in the principal languages of this 
family : 

Massachusetts: nco-womantam , v. i., ‘I love; am love- 
minded.’ To verbs of this form, 44 expressing a disposition, 
situation, or operation of the mind”, Zeisberger assigns a 
special conjugation (the third) in his Delaware Grammar (pp. 
50, 89). In the Chippeway, they end in -endam (Baraga, p. 
154). Examples may be found on almost every page of Eliot’s 
version; e. g. musquantam 4 he is angry’, literally ‘bloody- 


u 


J. H. Trumbull , 


minded’; nut-jishantam ‘1 hate’, 4 1 feel hatred or abhorrence’; 
noo-wabesuontam ‘I fear’; nut-ch epshontam ‘lam frightened’, 
<fcc. All these verbs may be used, with the appropriate suffix, 
as transitive inanimate , ‘he loves if, ‘he hates it,’ &c. 

Chippeway: nin sdgia (Baraga), ne saugeau ‘I love a per¬ 
son’ (Schoolcraft),—but Baraga, more exactly, translates ‘I 
love him, her, or it’, remarking that, in this form, “the object 
upon which acts the subject of these verbs, is always contained 
in the verb itself.” (Otchipwe Grammar, 200.) With the pro¬ 
noun : o sdgian (Bar.), oo zdhgeahn (Jones), ‘he loves him’. 

Cree: ne-sakehewdn ‘I love some one’ (indeterminate); ne 
sdlcechegan ‘ I love something’ (indefinite) ; ne-sdkehewdywissin 
(adj.-verb, active-intransitive) ‘I am loving’ or, as Howse 
analyzes it, “ I amlove-someone-ing”. Cree Grammar, 105,114. 

Northern Algonkin of Canada: ni sakidjike‘1 love’. This 
form is “sans regime, exprimant un sentiment”; ne sakiton 
means ‘ I love it’; ni sakiha, ‘ I love him’.* 

Micmac: “ kejaleoei , j’aime,” is placed by Maillard (Gram. 
Mikmaque, p. 56) among verbs “qui ne re§oivent aucun 
regime dans leur acception”,— “verbes sans rdgime”. 

Passing now to the consideration of another class of errors, 
— those which concern the vocabulary, including mistransla¬ 
tions, false analyses, and mistakes in the identification of 
words in Eliot’s version corresponding to those in the English 
text,—our first example shall be taken from that “immense 
monument of historical research,” the Mithridates of Adclung 
and Vater. In the third part of this work Professor Vater gave 
(3te Abth.,p. 388) a list of words in the language of the “ Na- 
ticks, from Eliot”. One of these words is “ Cliequikompuh”, 
standing as the Natick name of the ‘ Sun’. Balbi, borrowing 
these words from the Mithridates reproduced them in his Atlas 
Ethnographique (Tab. xli.), where Chequikompuh appears as 
“ Massachusetts or Natick” for ‘ Sun’. Now the Massachusetts 
name of the Sun— nepduz (Narr. nippdwus, R. Williams,) 
occurs at least a hundred times in Eliot’s version. In Joshua, 

* Etudes philologiques sur quelqucs Langues Sauvages de l’Amerique (Mon¬ 
treal, 1866), pp. 50, 55, 60. 



15 


On Mistranslations of Words from Eliot's Bible , fe. 

x. 13, for the words: “ the sun stood still”, of the English text, 
we have 44 nepduz chequnikompau .” Mistaking the order of 
the words, Prof. Vater sets the (mutilated) verb instead of the 
noun against the word 4 Sonne' of his vocabulary. 

In the same volume of Mithridates (2te Abth., p. 349), the 
learned author notes the resemblance of 44 cone ”, as a New Eng¬ 
land word for 4 Sun’, to the Tatar kun. Unfortunately, cone 
(as Roger Williams wrote it; kcon of Eliot and Cotton) means 
4 snow' , not 4 sun’. The same error is found in an earlier work 
of Yater’s, ( Untersuchungen iiber Amerika's Bevolkerung , 
Leipzig, 1810, p. 51), whence more than one comparative 
philologist has taken it as evidence of the relationship of 
American and Asiatic languages. 

A similar mistake was made by Mr. Duponceau, in a list of 
words 44 selected from Eliot’s translation of the Bible,” and 
incorporated by Dr. Pickering with the verbal index to his 
edition of Eliot’s Indian Grammar Begun.* Among these we 
find Sohsfimdonk , as the Massachusetts word for 44 Forest.” 
Eliot’s version has for 4 forest’, touohkomuk , (literally, ‘desert 
place’, 4 wilderness’,) from which was formed the adjective 
touohkomukque . Sohsumdonlc , a verbal from sohsumco 4 it 
shines forth’, was employed for the translation of the word 
4 glory’,—-literally, 4 a forth-shining’. In Isaiah, x. 18, for 
4 the glory of his forest’ we find wut-touohkomukque sohstimdonk 
4 his forest glory’, the English order of words being inverted, 
in accordance with the laws of Algonkin synthesis. Hence, 
doubtless, Mr. Duponceau’s mistake. 

Of all explorers of Eliot’s ‘rich mine’ Mr. Schoolcraft was 
perhaps least successful. In the first volume of his magnum 
opus , 44 Information respecting the History Ac. of the Indian 
Tribes,” he gave (pp. 288-299) a vocabulary of nearly 300 
words “extracted from Eliot’s translation.” How the ex¬ 
traction was effected, and what is the real value of the vocab¬ 
ulary as a contribution to comparative philology, a few speci¬ 
mens will show. 

The first word is Manitoo , for 4 God’, with a reference to 
Gen. xxiv. 26 (by misprint probably, for 27). This should 

* Massachusetts Historical Collections, 2d Scries, vol. ix. p. liii. 




16 


J. H. Trumbull , 


be Manit , and should have been accompanied by the remark 
that it was not usually employed by Eliot as a name of the 
Supreme Being. Mr. Schoolcraft was wrong in saying (p. 
287) that in Eliot’s version “the words God and Jehovah 
appear as synonymes of Manito ” or Manit. Those names were 
generally—‘Jehovah’ was always transferred to the Indian 
text; not translated by Manit. The form Manito (or -too') 
combines with the noun the representative of the verb-sub¬ 
stantive, and means ‘ Manit is’. The plural, manittooog (or 
-: t6og ), is used for ‘gods’ of the English version; as in I. Cor. 
viii. 5, manitooog monaog ‘gods many.’ 

“12. Husband, Muntimayenok” , — for which Gen. xxx. 15 
is cited. In that verse, keneemunumayeuonk nahsuk stands 
for “thou hast taken away my husband”. Mr. Schoolcraft 
mistook the verb for the noun; and rejecting the pronominal 
prefix — and something more, for nee belongs to the root,— 
he made, by help of a misprint, munUmayenok ! 

“18. Nunaumonittumwos. Wife. Job, xxxi. 10.” For‘wife’ 
Eliot has mittamwussis or mittamwas. Nun-naumon is ‘ my 
son’, which Mr. Schoolcraft somehow contrived to mix up with 
nummittamwos , ‘ my wife’, in the verse cited. 

“47. Kon, Bone.” The references are to Job, xxx. 30, 
xxxi. 22. In the former verse, nuskonash stands for ‘ my 
bones’; in the latter, wutch wuskonit for ‘ from its bone.’ 
The root uskon ‘ bone’ cannot be used without a prefix ; 
nuskon ‘ my bone’, wuskon ‘ his bone’, or (indefinite) muskon 
‘ any bone’. There is no such word as Kon . 

“77. Noonshoonum , Boat. Acts, xvii. 16,” — an error for 
Acts,xxvii. 16, where noomshconun — a verb in the first person 
plural (with its prefix) — means, “ we came by boat”. The 
noun m’shoon ( mushoon , mishoon) ‘ a boat’ is used in John vi. 
22, Acts, xxvii. 80, Ac. 

“ 79. Omoquash , Sail. Acts, xvii. 17,” — another misprint, 
for Acts, xxvii. 17, — where pungwomuhquash ‘quicksands’ 
happens to stand next to ncokakinnumwog 6 they strake sail’ 
(lit. ‘they let it dowm’). The word for‘sail’ is sepdghunk 
‘ that which is stretched out.’ 

“81 . Hunkaueehtaeaug, Oar. Ezek. xxvii. 6.” The man- 


On Mistranslations of Words from Eliot's Bible , fc. 17 

gled remains of wuttuTihunka'dShteaog , 4 they made thy oars’,— 
a causative verb formed from wuttuhhunk 4 oar’ or 4 paddle’. 

“172. Taskoohau, Thistle.” No reference is given ; but as 
taskuhkau is the 3d pers. sing, indie, present, of a verb mean¬ 
ing 4 to tread upon’, and as in 2 Chron. xxv. 18, taskuhkauau 
kdgkdunogkohquohliouoh stands for 44 he trode down the thistle ”, 
we may infer that Mr. Schoolcraft again mistook verb for 
noun. 

44 225. Nunneem , Pigeon. Levit. xv. 6.” The word ‘pigeon’ 
(Mass, wuskuhwhan ) does not occur in the verse cited, but it 
may be found in vv. 14 and 29 of the same chapter, as the 
object of the trans. anim. verb neemunau 4 he takes’. This 
verb also occurs in v. 6 of cli. xiv. in the form wunnemunoh 
( 4 he takes it’). 44 Nunneem" is, I suspect, a misprint for 

Wunneem — the first two syllables of wunneemunoh. 

And so on, — through the whole vocabulary. Prefixed to 
it are some observations on the 44 Massachusetts Indians” and 
their language, in which we find a curious mistake, — unsur¬ 
passed by any in the vocabulary itself. The language of 
Eliot’s version is said (p. 287) to be 44 a well characterized 
dialect of the Algonkin”, but Eliot found in it, 44 it appears, 
no term for the verb to love , and introduced the word 4 womon' 
as an equivalent, adding the Indian suffixes and inflexions, 
for person, number, and tense.” 

Mr. Schoolcraft ought to have known that this word was 
not of Eliot’s invention or introduction. The intransitive, 
womantam 4 he loves’, the animate-active intrans. (or adjective, 
verb) womoausu ‘lie is loving’ or 4 a lover’, and the trans. 
animate womonau 4 he loves (some one)’, with their derivatives, 
are much used in Eliot’s version; but forms from the same 
root may be found in Roger Williams’s Indian 4 Key’, printed 
in 1943, twenty years earlier: e. g.,waumatisu ‘loving’ (p. 
140); cowammaunsli [in Eliot’s orthography, koo-womon-sh ] 

4 1 love you’; eowammaunuck 4 he loves you’; cowdmmaus ‘you 
are loving’ (p. 8), Ac. Earlier yet, in Wood’s rude 44 Nomen- 
clator” (appended to 'New England's Prospect , 1634), we have 
• awmauseu, an honest man” (for 4 a kindly disposed’ ora 
‘loving’ man), and 44 noewammaioause, I love you.’ 

3 


18 


J. H. Trumbull , 


This story of Eliot’s manufacture of an Indian verb ‘ to love’ 
from the English word 4 woman’ will always find believers. 
It belongs to the same class with that of the mistake made in 
the translation of Judges, v. 28, “ The mother of Sisera looked 
out at a window and cried through the lattice”, — where, it 
is said, for ‘lattice’ Eliot used an Indian word which really 
means ‘eel-pot’. This story has been printed scores of times, 

— and will continue to be printed, for it is ‘ too good to be 
lost’. There are only two exceptions to be taken to it: (1) 
that the Indian eel-pot was of ‘ lattice work’ and that its name 
would not be a mistranslation of ‘ lattice,’ though hardly a 
sufficient ; translation; and (2) that in the verse in question 
Eliot did not translate the word ‘ lattice’ at all, but transferred 
it from the English to the Indian text, adding only the locative 
suffix: u papdshpe lattice-ut, through the lattice.” 

Eliot’s work has not been appreciated, even by scholars, 
as highly as it deserves to be. Mr. Howse — the author of a 
valuable “ Grammar of the Cree Language” (London, 1844,) 

— remarks in his Introduction, that “from the circumstance 
of Eliot’s having translated the Bible into the language 
of the Massachusetts Indians, or rather from his being the re¬ 
puted translator, {which is a very different thing,') it has been 
erroneously supposed that he was thoroughly versed in their 
language:” Mr. Howse was “ much inclined to think, however, 
that grammatically considered, it is an imperfect perform¬ 
ance,” and that, “if correct , it was formed only by the assist¬ 
ance of a half-breed interpreter.” A half-breed interpreter 
co-operating with the good Apostle to the Indians, in Bible- 
work, in puritan Massachusetts, and before 16G0 ! 

But “ the most unkindest cut of all” at the Wunneetupana- 
tamwee Up-Biblum was given by a chip thrown from Max 
Muller’s German workshop. This eminent scholar, in a paper 
(first published in 1862) on the Abbd Brasseur de Bourbourg’s 
translation of the Quichd Popul Vuhf mentions “ the transla¬ 
tion of the Bible in the Massachusetts language” as a specimen 
of picture-writing , and informs his readers that “ the verses from 

* Chips from a German Workshop, vol. i. (1867), p. 320. The list of symbols 
stands between quotation marks, but Prof. Muller does not give his authority for 
the statement. 



On Mistranslation of Words from Eliot's Bible , £c. 19 

25 to 82 in the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs are expressed by 
‘ an ant, a coney, a locust, a spider, a river (symbol of motion), 
a lion, a greyhound, a he-goat and king, a man foolishly lift¬ 
ing himself to take hold of the heavens’. No doubt these 
symbols would help the reader to remember the proper order 
of the verses, but” — observes Prof. Muller, and I shall not 
venture to differ with him on this point,—“they would be 
perfectly useless without a commentary or without a previous 
knowledge of the text.” 


4 


^ 4 i 


% 

Vi.' 


x 






